Kanye West has the internet talking once again, this time for the way Yeezy Gap is being marketed.
The rapper has divided social media users after photographs emerged showing his new Yeezy line for Gap on display in trash bags, as per his request.
A photograph from inside a Gap store, shared on Twitter by New York-based user Owen Lang, showed clothing from the collection shoved into three large black bags.
“This is how they are selling Yeezy Gap,” Lang captioned the picture.
“The sales associate said Ye got mad when he saw they had it on hangers and this is how he wanted it. They won’t help you find [your] size too, you just have to just dig through everything.”
The unconventional display has been criticised by some social media users.
“Imagine fishing through a garbage bag for new clothes in a store. This is unhinged,” one person wrote.
Another user accused West of trying to turn homelessness into an aesthetic.
“Personally, I think rich people cosplaying as homeless is in bad taste and Ye himself saying homeless people are his inspiration is kind of worse, but hey, art right?”
The comments come after West shared a message to his Instagram this week that children and the homeless are “the biggest inspiration for all design”.
One person joked that West’s clear instruction telling workers not to hang the clothes was his “gift” to them after his experience of working at Gap as a teenager.
West rapped about his time as a Gap sales assistant on his 2004 song “Spaceship”, in which he said he made little money, and that he stole from the shop and never got caught.
Some Twitter users defended West and said that he was minimising the work of sales assistants.
“The absolute minimum amount of labour for Gap staff. This is the first cool thing Kanye has done since My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy,” one person said.
Another wrote: “As a former Gap Inc employee, shoving s*** back into the bag and not having to fold it on purpose sounds like a nice break from crisp folds and sizing.”
One person, who visited a store in Miami, said employees there still assiting customers and that the marketing tactic had made for an “awsome shopping experience”.
“Miami store was super helpful and employees were definitely helping find sizes,” the Twitter user wrote.
“Not only that customers were standing around the bags calling out sizes that they found for other people. It was an awesome experience.”
